Identifying suppliers - search the Design News articles archives. Lots of times there are articles on devices - from sensors to microcontrollers and more, that show good comparisons with background information.

Q. What factors I need to consider to choose, for example, a pressure sensor for a medical application?, Can I choose any sensor from the market or it has to be special?. Thank you.

Sensing in medical applications can pose a few callenges. The first level is whether the sensing is external or internal. Obviously thermometers can address internal (but not invivo) measurements rather easily. Internal blood pressure measurements have specifcations that have been developed. Some sensor suppliers caution against the use of their products in medical applications.

Since you are checking pressure drop across a filter, what is the system pressure.

This would determin the common mode presure the sensor must tolerate.

Good point. I should have stated air filtering in a computer system. If this was a high pressure water flow application, the common mode pressure would certianly been a top level cosnideration and it would have added packaing complexity to the decision. For air filter monitoring, many pressure sensor suppliers address this type of application and the comon mode pressure is not normally an issue.

A few weeks ago, Ford Motor Co. quietly announced that it was rolling out a new wrinkle to the powerful safety feature called stability control, adding even more lifesaving potential to a technology that has already been very successful.

It won't be too much longer and hardware design, as we used to know it, will be remembered alongside the slide rule and the Karnaugh map. You will need to move beyond those familiar bits and bytes into the new world of software centric design.

People who want to take advantage of solar energy in their homes no longer need to install a bolt-on solar-panel system atop their houses -- they can integrate solar-energy-harvesting shingles directing into an existing or new roof instead.

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